President Donald Trump has installed a 13-foot statue of Christopher Columbus on the grounds of the White House, placing it outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The statue and its backstory

The statue is a replica of a Columbus monument that was toppled by protesters and thrown into Baltimore's inner harbor during anti-racism demonstrations in 2020. Officials say the replacement was constructed in 2022 using shattered fragments recovered from the harbor.

The pedestal bears an inscription that reads: "Destroyed July 4, 2020 ... Resurrected 2022 ... Rededicated by President Donald J. Trump, October 13, 2025."

  • Height: 13 feet
  • Weight: About one ton
  • Location: Outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Pennsylvania Avenue

Official statements

Trump sent a letter to Basil Russo, leader of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, which owns the statue and loaned it to the federal government. In that letter he described Columbus as "the original American hero and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the Earth."

The White House posted on X calling Columbus a "hero" and saying the president would make sure he is "honored as such for generations to come."

Why this is controversial

Columbus has long been called the discoverer of America, though he never set foot on the continental United States and reached islands in the Caribbean and the area now known as the Bahamas. Historians and critics point out that his voyages, between 1492 and 1504, were linked to the trafficking of enslaved people and the violent treatment, displacement and deaths of Indigenous communities in the Caribbean.

In recent years many places in the United States have re-evaluated honors for Columbus, and some jurisdictions have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

In a 2021 Columbus Day proclamation, then president Joe Biden wrote that Columbus "ushered in a wave of devastation: violence perpetrated against native communities, displacement and theft of tribal homelands, the introduction and spread of disease, and more."

Legacy and response

Despite the controversies, Columbus remains a symbol of pride for some Italian-American organizations, and his name still appears in U.S. place names, including the District of Columbia.

The new placement of the statue at the White House has brought the debate about historical memory and public monuments back into view, with supporters calling it a restoration of heritage and opponents pointing to the harm tied to Columbus's actions.